


Sleep Easy, Little Cat

by splkespiegel



Category: Cowboy Bebop
Genre: Gen, Post-Series, ed and ein are mentioned in passing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:19:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4715891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splkespiegel/pseuds/splkespiegel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jet thinks about all the little loose ends Spike left.<br/>(Set post-series. Spoilers for the whole show, obviously.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep Easy, Little Cat

No one went inside Spike’s room after he died.

Just the thought of being in his space, being near his things, seemed strangely sacrilegious to the remnants of the Bebop crew. Now that he was gone, that little room became less of a living quarters and more of a frozen moment in time, simply sitting there without a purpose and remaining exactly as it was the day he soared off in the Swordfish II towards certain death.

Every once in a while, they would hit a particularly rough patch of space on their way to track a bounty head or go through a wonky astral gate and come very close to opening that door. Each time it happened they swore for a moment they heard someone rustling around until they realized that no; that was just false hope letting them believe that the sound of something falling over in there was Spike, back in his room with the door ajar and tinkering around like he always did.

Although Jet and Faye got along well enough without anyone else aboard the ship, something didn’t feel right whenever they were in the same room together. Neither of them would acknowledge it outright, but sometimes Jet thought about it in privacy. Maybe it was the fact that the Bebop felt colder, or that the smell of Marlboros in the living room had diminished, leaving behind an ashy ghost that they couldn’t seem to get rid of entirely. Maybe it was because they had been a three man crew for so long, and a five man crew for longer, that it felt inherently wrong to be near each other without the third person.

Maybe it was just because it was so damned quiet without Spike and Faye arguing, without Ed and Ein running around and getting into everything, without the sound of someone mumbling about whether a bounty featured on Bigshot was worth the effort for the reward.

In the midst of all of this, Jet found himself constantly glancing at the ash stains on the couch and the bullet holes in the ceiling and that door that he dared not open; hoping that Spike had at least gotten a proper burial and that he saw Julia one last time. Sometimes he felt a quiet rage wash over him at the thought of Spike dying alone – no one cared about that kid until it was too late. No one cared about Spike Spiegel, who wandered into Jet’s life like a stray cat, who came and went at random but always came back to him in the end. Spike, who lived his life like it was all a dream and was so love-struck and stupid and stuck on the past that only death could settle it all.

_There was once a tiger striped cat. This cat died a million deaths, was revived and lived a million lives, and he was owned by various people who he didn’t really care for. The cat wasn’t afraid to die. Then one day the cat became a stray cat, which meant he was free. He met a white female cat, and the two of them spent their days together happily. Well, years passed, and the white cat grew weak and died of old age. The tiger striped cat cried a million times, and then he died too. Except this time, he didn’t come back to life._

Spike had told him that story, just before he left for Mars to face his past once and for all. He wondered where he had heard it before he told him. Now that he had time to consider it, how Spike laughed with him over how he hated the story he’d told himself because he hated cats, he wondered if Spike had just made it up to prove a point before he left them for good.

Jet paused at the notion. He’d never really sat down and thought about what the story meant. Now that he finally did, it seemed obvious.

He stood from his bed and gazed out the window at the cold void of space, at the stars that he’d been staring at for years now. He could pinpoint exactly which faint glimmer was Mars, even all the way from Ganymede’s orbit.

“Sleep easy, little cat.” He mumbled. It seemed right in the moment, and he didn’t think about it after he’d said it. There was no need to.


End file.
